


Before You Drown

by nerdzeword



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Mixtape 2021, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen, Murder Mystery, Wholesome Twinyards, also spoopy content, except they never actually solve anything, good brothers, i can and will fill that tag myself if i have to, it has layers, katelyn/aaron if you squint, they're not good at this, wholesome content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdzeword/pseuds/nerdzeword
Summary: Aaron and Andrew get to be the brothers they never thought they could be, but not exactly in the way they thought they would.For the AFTG Mixtape 2021
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Katelyn (All For The Game) & Aaron Minyard
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21
Collections: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021





	Before You Drown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkest_shades_of_red](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkest_shades_of_red/gifts).



> My song was Fallen Leaves by Billy Talent ([Youtube](https://youtu.be/G6Wp3apD718), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/3jUTjCISntIUFL8jnAjzgc)) I had never heard the song before, so it was a fun challenge. I spent a very long time trying to get the _vibes_ right, so hopefully my efforts paid off!
> 
> A shoutout to Jade, Madison and Nissa, who were all very helpful in betaing this for me!

_In a crooked little town, they were lost and never found_

_Fallen leaves, fallen leaves, fallen leaves on the ground_

_Run away before you drown, or the streets will beat you down_

_Fallen leaves, fallen leaves, fallen leaves on the ground_

  
  


Aaron should be grateful really. He should be grateful that he had a brother. He should be grateful his brother had given up _everything_ he had in order to protect him after what he had done to- but it didn’t matter, because even though Aaron was grateful, _he was..._ he still should not have to put up with this shit. 

“Fucking Hell, Andrew,” he muttered at his brother under his breath. He was well accustomed to speaking softly so no one else could hear him. His tremulous relationship with his twin was his own business and no one else's. Andrew was ignoring him, as per usual, but that was fine. It _was._ Aaron didn’t need his brother’s attention or his approval. 

_That doesn’t mean you don’t want it though._ His brain whispered to him in a voice that sounded eerily like Andrew’s. 

_Shut up!_ He hissed back. 

He followed his brother out the gate of the school, and trudged back in the direction of their house, footsteps in sync. Andrew didn’t technically live with Aaron, he never had, but he was always there, no matter what foster home Aaron ended up in. No matter how far away he thought they had been pulled apart. Aaron was honestly surprised his brother wasn’t on any missing posters, he couldn’t have gone back into the system since they were at least thirteen. 

That was when he had started following Aaron anyway. First to his mom’s house, then after her death, to his Uncle Luther’s, then to each of the five foster homes since. Andrew always just seemed to know when Aaron would be moving, just like he always seemed to know when Aaron was sad, or in danger, or any other number of things that he should never have been able to know. Aaron learned not to question it. 

He also learned to accept that no matter how much Andrew did or did not care about you, he would not touch you. That no matter how many nights Aaron fell asleep next to his brother, curled up on the bed, close enough that the faint sting of Andrew’s perpetually cold breath could just barely ruffle Aaron’s bangs, but never, ever, touch- Andrew would always be gone in the morning.

He learned to accept that Andrew either couldn’t, or didn’t want anyone to know he was there, and had somehow mastered the art of vanishing at the slightest hint of movement. That his brother was kind in a fierce and protective sort of way that no one else would ever understand, because all they ever saw of him was the people he hurt to keep them from hurting Aaron, and not the long nights Andrew would forego sleep with him before a test, just to help him study. 

“Hey,” he said quietly. He was always quiet around Andrew. Years of hiding and secrets conditioning him to never let anyone else hear.

“What?” Andrew replied. He was calmer now. When they had first met, Andrew was always angry. Angry at Aaron, angry at Aaron’s abusers, angry at the world. Most of all though, Aaron suspected he was angry at himself. That had calmed down some as they got older. As Aaron started fighting for himself. As they both learned what it was like to have someone always on their side. 

“Is it just me, or is this town… weird?” Aaron asked, shuffling his backpack higher onto his back. He would have to remember to do his biology homework tonight, there was no way he was going to let _senior year_ be the year he let himself fall behind. 

“Weirder than you?” Andrew smirked at him. The expression sat weird on his face; anything other than a frown sat weird on his face.

“Ha. Ha. You’re so funny. No. I mean weird like- like there’s something wrong?”

“Maybe it’s vampires?” Andrew suggested calmly, with a light shrug.

It was moments like these that Aaron wished he could shove his brother, the way he’d seen people on tv shove their siblings. He bet it would be satisfying, but no amount of satisfaction would make up for breaking Andrew’s trust like that. Andrew didn’t like to be touched, so Aaron wouldn’t touch him. 

It had to be awfully lonely though. 

Aaron wasn’t a huge fan of touching people himself. He didn’t like the foreign feeling of it, the not knowing where their hands had been before, or what they were going to do, but he thought it would probably be different if it was his brother. He would let Andrew touch him, because he trusted him, and knew that Andrew would always move his hands if Aaron asked, and he would never, ever, hurt him. It was one of their rules. 

“Shut it. You know what I mean,” Aaron complained instead, letting his disappointment at never being able to have a ‘proper brother’ relationship with his twin float away.

“Yeah. I do.” Andrew looked back over their shoulders and narrowed his eyes at the school. 

For the longest time, Aaron hadn’t been able to function around people who weren't his brother. How was he supposed to pretend that he was _fine,_ and _normal,_ when his brother was forced to follow him around, protecting him from the shadows, like a fucked up, personal Batman? How was he supposed to go to class and act like nothing was wrong, when the brother he barely knew had given up his last shot at a normal life for him, even though everyone who was supposed to care, couldn’t be bothered? How was he supposed to work on homework when he could still sometimes feel the ghosts of the tremors that wracked his body while Andrew had locked him in his Uncle’s bathroom and forced him into withdrawal?

Aaron was only a little bitter at the world, but it was fine. He had gotten over it. He had moved past his reticence and learned how to at least feign interest in other people’s petty problems. Over time, he had even managed to learn how to make friends, or as close to friends as he could have when he moved every year and couldn’t tell anyone about his secret twin/best friend. 

So befriending Katelyn wasn’t an _entirely_ new experience. The butterflies in his stomach when he spoke to her, and the staring in class were very new though, and they were- quite frankly - terrifying. Aaron ignored those things, because Katelyn was nice, and pretty, and also wanted to be a doctor, and sometimes he just wanted to have a real conversation with someone that wasn’t his twin for like, five seconds. 

“So,” he finally got up the nerve to ask her two days later. “What’s the deal with the spooky vibes?” 

She sat down next to him on the bench and hummed a little as she peeled open the wrappings on her sandwich. 

“Okay so like, no one really knows? This place has always sort of been like this, for as long as I’ve been here anyway. Terry over there swears it’s because we’re on a ley line, but I don’t know. I think- I think it’s probably something more like- you know in IT, how the town of Derry is in its own little bubble?”

“Yeah?”

“Sometimes I feel like that’s us. We get people coming and going, but the people who stay… the town changes them somehow.”

“Changes them how?”

“Right. So you see over there at that table?” She pointed at a table in the corner. There were three people sitting at it, huddled in a whispering bunch. “So no one sits on the other side of the table - no living person anyway - but sometimes, if I turn my head fast enough, I can see a group there, talking around the people who are there, but if you actually look, they’ll vanish.”

“Are they there all the time?” Aaron asked curiously.

“No? I mean, I don’t think so, but honestly, who knows. No one else I’ve spoken to seems to know they’re there at all so. Maybe I’m just ‘more attuned’ or whatever it is Sonia keeps sprouting.”

“Weird,” Aaron replied, but out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a flicker of a person, blue eyes staring straight back at him. 

  
  


“Discover anything yet?” Andrew asked when Aaron caught up to him outside the school gates. 

“Depends on what you mean by anything. Did you know the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell?” 

Andrew gave him a flat look. “You’re not funny.”

“Neither are you,” Aaron shot back, then shrugged. “There’s definitely something weird going on around here, but half of the people in town pretend everything’s fine, and the other half make up elaborate conspiracy theories to compensate.” 

Andrew hummed in acknowledgment, but didn’t respond. 

“Why doesn’t your twin go to school with you?” Katelyn asked when he joined her in the library. Aaron stared at her, panic sending his brain into overdrive. Was she the only one who had seen Andrew? Has anyone else? Did Katelyn tell anyone else about him?

“What?” 

Her eyes widened a little. “Oh. Am I not supposed to know about him? Sorry, I just thought it was funny, because you never mentioned you had a brother, but you don’t suffer from only child syndrome, so I was really confused, like maybe you had a cousin you were really close to or something? I dunno, is it weird to think about other people’s siblings like that?” Aaron slowly recovered from his shock and bit his lip in thought. Before he did anything else, he should probably figure out what Katelyn had seen, and if she had told anyone else, right?

“I- We’re not supposed to be together. Did anyone else see us?” he asked her cautiously. 

She shook her head fervently. “No! No one else! Probably anyway. You walk past my house on your way back from school, but no one else from school really lives in our neighborhood, because it’s kind of the, I dunno? Retiree neighborhood? Anyway, I haven’t told anyone else either, if that’s what you’re worried about! Your secret is safe with me!”

Aaron sent her a wan smile. “Thanks, Katelyn.” 

She smiled back and then sat up. “Oh! So I was thinking about your question yesterday, and I started digging through the old records at the City Hall - my mom works there - and did you know there was a whole string of kidnappings and murders here in town?”

“No, that’s crazy.”

“I know right! So like- I was looking into it and they happened for _years,_ every year or so a kid would vanish from their house or school or whatever, and their bodies would be found in the lake. The really weird thing is that afterwards, no one except the families would ever remember having seen the kids before. And sometimes, sometimes not even the families would remember.”

“So how did they catch the murderer?” 

“That’s the thing, they didn’t. The murderer is still out there somewhere and no one even knows who it is.”

“How long ago was this exactly?” 

“The last one was five years ago. Like, we were in middle school! That’s insane! You’re lucky you weren't here for that actually, there were rumors flying around for _months._ So anyway, I was looking up where all of these murders took place, and a couple of the locations don’t exist anymore, but the _most_ suspect of the locations is this guy.” She spun her phone around to show him the map. “Over here, in the middle of the woods, is the Lake House. No one has lived there in years, but reports say that the house is in pristine condition.” 

Aaron narrowed his eyes at her “What do you mean by reports?”

“I mean it’s a like, monthly thing to dare someone to break into the house. Not that anyone has ever needed to. Everyone says the doors are always unlocked when they get there.”

“That’s honestly creepy as fuck.”

“That’s what I’m saying! So how about it?” she asked him. 

“How about what?”

“Come explore the probably haunted house with me tonight? You can bring your brother, I bet you guys don’t get a lot of time to hang out if you’re not allowed to see him. You can tell your parents we’re studying or something.” 

“I- I’ll think about it. I’d need to talk to An- to my brother.”

“Yeah sure! No problem! Here, give me your number, and you can just text me, yeah?”

“This is a bad idea. I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this,” Andrew complained as he and Aaron trekked through the forest towards the Lakehouse. Katelyn was supposed to be meeting them there, but even were she not, Aaron would probably have dragged his brother out to look at the house anyway. 

“So what do you think the house’s deal is?” 

Andrew shrugged his shoulders, his leather jacket shimmering in the faint moonlight filtering in through the trees. “Maybe it’s a demon house.”

Aaron snorted. “That’s almost as terrible as your vampire theory.”

“You say terrible, I say plausible. Let’s face it. I am the only reason you would ever survive a zombie apocalypse.”

“My hero,” Aaron intoned dryly. He saw the light of a flashlight shining between the trees, when they finally broke through and noticed it was Katelyn, Aaron released a shaky breath.

“Aaron! You’re here! And Aaron’s brother!” Katelyn held out her hand to him. “I’m Katelyn.” Andrew just stared at her with his hands in his pockets. 

“Andrew doesn’t like to touch people,” Aaron said, trying to be apologetic, but not quite making it. He didn’t really think Andrew should have to apologize for not wanting to touch people.

“Oh! That’s cool! So how are we doing this?” 

“Maybe we should knock on the front door first?” Aaron suggested. “It seems, I dunno, rude? To not at least try knocking first.”

“True! So I guess we knock!” 

Andrew hmm’d in agreement and followed Aaron to the door. It only took a few short taps before the door swung open, but when Aaron looked inside, there was no one there. 

“Is it just me, or is that creepy as fuck?” Aaron asked Andrew over his shoulder. 

“Are you going to just stand there? Or are you going to go in? What are we, vampires? You’re not going to get more of an invitation than that.” 

“Shut up Andrew,” Aaron retorted and entered the house. He reached for the light switch beside the door, and was not surprised to discover that the switch did nothing to actually turn the lights on. Katelyn wasn’t far behind him, shining her flashlight on every surface she could find. It looked like a normal entryway, as far as Aaron could tell, more like a house in a power outage than one where dozens of murders had probably taken place.

“What exactly are we trying to accomplish here?” Andrew asked, poking at a portrait on the wall. “You don’t really think we’re actually going to solve a murder or something here, do you?” 

Katelyn didn’t look at him when she answered. “I’m not sure what we’re looking for. Answers maybe?” 

“What sort of answers are we going to find that the police haven’t already?” Andrew rolled his eyes, not that Katelyn could see them. Aaron shrugged in response. He wandered into the kitchen and stopped when he noticed that the indicator light on the oven was on. Aaron pressed his hand to the top of the stove and confirmed that the oven was in fact going, but the kitchen lights didn’t turn on when he tried them. 

“What?” 

“What’s up, little bro?” Andrew peered at the lightswitch over his shoulder. 

“We’re twins dipshit. Look. There’s obviously power going to the house since the oven light is on, and even a gas stove would have an electric indicator light. But none of the light switches work.” 

Andrew hummed and wandered around the kitchen. “Aaron. Look.” 

Aaron followed where his finger was pointing with his flashlight. He hadn’t noticed in the hallway, where the light was covered, but here in the kitchen, the lights were in a sort of mini chandelier, so Aaron could see that every single one of the lightbulbs were shattered. 

“What even is this place?” he muttered. Andrew stared at something out the window behind him. Aaron turned around. 

“What is it?” he asked, not seeing anything.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” Andrew seemed to shake himself out of it, and he turned to look at Katelyn, who finally joined them through the other entrance to the kitchen. 

“So the living room is spotless. Did you guys find anything in here?” She swung her flashlight [around] to look around the kitchen. Aaron pointed his flashlight at the ceiling light again for her. 

“That.”

“What? Oh. But there’s no glass on the floor?” She pointed her own flashlight at their feet.

He shook his head. “No, nothing. If I had to guess, I’d say that the hallway light is also shattered. So the real question is: what could have shattered every light in the house, and who cleaned it up?” 

Katelyn looked between the twins. “Maybe it was an earthquake? Or an EMP? Do those shatter lights? A really loud noise maybe?”

“It would have to be something high pitched. Over 105 decibels at least,” Aaron said offhandedly. He supposed it could have been an EMP or something, but it wouldn’t explain why only the lights were affected.

“Nerd.” Andrew made a flatulent noise, but it wasn't nearly as degrading as they usually were. Aaron shot him a worried look, but Andrew wasn’t even looking at him, just staring out the window again.

“...How do you know that?” Katelyn asked.

“Eighth grade science fair. I won. Andrew mocked me for weeks.”

“That’s what brothers do, yes,” Katelyn commented. She had moved on to opening the kitchen cupboards and rifling through the contents.

“Is it?” Aaron asked curiously. He never could be sure if his relationship with Andrew was ‘normal’ or not. So much about their situation was far from normal. He didn’t think most kids met their twins at age twelve. He didn’t think most kids had brothers who refused to touch them, or spend the night. He was nearly positive that most kids didn’t have to hide their twins from their own foster families because they were afraid that they might get separated again. 

He would rather have the worst relationship with his brother in the world, than live in a world without him.

“Oh yeah,” Katelyn was still talking. “Brothers are terrible, as you probably know, the absolute worst. But they’re also the best too? It’s complicated. Or it is for me anyway. I’m sure it is for you too, what with you guys’ whole ‘not being able to see each other’ thing. But like, I have three brothers, right? And every single one of them is obnoxious as hell, and they frequently team up to make my life miserable, and they _never stop teasing,_ but at the same time, I know they always have my back, you know? No one understands me the way they do, and no one ever will, because no one else grew up with the same life experiences that we did.

“It’s like, yeah they’re the worst, but sometimes mom’s terrible friend Beth will be talking on the phone, spewing a bunch of bullshit, and I can just catch my brother’s eye and we just sort of _know_ that we are both thinking about that time Beth got drunk at the neighborhood Christmas party and dumped an entire glass of red wine on Mrs. Chancey’s head, and that sort of connection just can’t be replaced, you know?” 

Aaron had never really thought about his relationship with Andrew like that, mostly because they were so rarely together, despite Andrew always being _around._ “I guess?”

Andrew scoffed. “You really think siblings are that deep?”

“Yeah, yeah I do,” she responded, looking Andrew straight in the eye. Aaron eyed his brother carefully. Andrew was acting weird. Just the fact that he had agreed to come at all was strange, but actually interacting with Katelyn? That was downright bizarre. 

“What’s up with you?” he demanded. “You’ve been acting weird for days.”

Andrew just scoffed again. “Come on, we still have the rest of the house to investigate.” 

As with the rest of the house, all of the bedroom and bathroom lights were also shattered, but they found that the house was otherwise in perfect condition. In fact, if no one had told Aaron about its weird history, he would have assumed it was a perfectly normal home. Which, he supposed, was something that made the house all the weirder.

Sunday morning found Andrew watching weird detective movie reruns in the living room when Aaron went downstairs. He seemed to have gone back to normal in the two days since they visited the cabin, but Aaron watched him carefully anyway. 

“I take it Lucas and Ariana are gone already then?” he asked, not really expecting an answer. Lucas and Ariana were rarely home, which was a great step up from the last few foster families he’d had. At least these ones weren’t actively abusive, and he would be aging out of the system within the year anyway. As expected, Andrew just grunted in response. Aaron rolled his eyes at his brother and dug through the kitchen in search of something to eat. 

“There’s some cereal left,” Andrew told him without looking up from where his eyes were fixed on the TV. Aaron found the beaten up box of Lucky Charms in the back of the pantry, and grinned

“Yessss.” Aaron didn’t bother to thank his brother before pouring himself a bowl and sitting at the table to scroll through his phone while he ate. Katelyn had been sending him periodic updates on what she had found at City Hall, but none of the information seemed to explain why an abandoned house in the woods would be cleaned regularly, have shattered lights, and a working oven. 

**Katelyn**

Want to meet and compare notes? Maybe at the park down the street?

**Aaron**

Sure

“Andrew, I’m meeting Katelyn at the park. Don’t scare her whenever you decide to show up,” he called over his shoulder as he pulled on his coat. Andrew just grunted again. Aaron wasn’t sure why he bothered, Andrew would just do what he wanted anyway.

Katelyn was already waiting when he arrived, she pulled out a stack of papers from her bag. “Right, so I made a table of all of the murders, when they happened, and where. The problem is, I tried looking up the death records and-,” she spun her pages around so he could read them. 

“What am I seeing here?” he asked.

“This girl. Allison. They found her five years ago. The thing is, Allison has been dead for twelve years. She died in a home robbery when she was eight. And! This is the really weird part, the only one who remembered her around here, was this guy - Seth Gordon. He died of a drug overdose last year, but he claimed that he and Allison were dating.” Katelyn was near bouncing with excitement. 

“So all of that alone would be really bizarre and creepy, right?”

“Yeah? Wait, are you saying there’s more?” 

“ _So_ much more.” She started laying out all of the papers in neat stacks. 

“Matthew Boyd. Died of an accidental drug overdose at age eleven. Found here six years ago. Danielle Wilds was killed by one of her mother’s clients when she was seven, she was found here eight years ago. Renee Walker was stabbed at age five, they suspect she was caught in the middle of a gang fight. They found her here ten years ago.” Aaron stopped her hand when she went to read out the next page.

“Nicky Hemmick. Committed suicide when he was thirteen,” he said quietly, not even having to see more than the name. 

“You knew him?” Aaron nodded. 

“He was my cousin. I lived with his parents for a while. Let's just say it never surprised me that he did it.”

“Oh no. Aaron, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine. I barely knew him. When did they find his body?”

“Five years ago. The really weird thing is, with every single one of them, within three days of the bodies being found, they would vanish.”

“Vanish?”

“Yeah. They were just… gone. The general consensus from the police is that the murderer somehow keeps sneaking in and stealing the bodies back. Unofficially, there are half a dozen theories, each wilder than the last.” 

“So what do you think is happening?” Aaron asked.

“If you want to know that, you should really ask your brother,” someone said from behind him. Aaron turned around and stared as a boy around the same age as them stepped out from behind a tree. He was short, not as short as Aaron of course, but close, with auburn hair and piercing blue eyes.

“What?” Before the guy had a chance to answer Aaron’s bewildered question, Andrew was there, slamming a discarded tree branch into the kid’s stomach. 

“Oops,” he quipped blandly. 

“What the fuck?” the kid gasped out from where he had landed on the ground. 

“Hey hey hey, buddy. Mind your own business maybe? Hm?” Andrew leaned on the branch and peered down at the kid.

“Fuck you,” the kid spat in return. “You never should have come here. He’s powerful enough as it is without you people showing up and feeding him.”

“I told you to piss off. Leave us alone.” Andrew shot a glance over his shoulder at Aaron and Katelyn before looking back at the kid again. “That includes the girl too, I guess.” Aaron stared at his brother in shock. He had _never_ seen his brother be willing to stick his neck out for anyone other than Aaron before.

“Fine. But stay away from the Lake House. It’s not safe.” The boy scrambled to his feet and vanished into the forest. 

“What the fuck was that?” Katelyn said. 

“I have no idea,” Aaron whispered. Aaron set his questions about the boy on the back burner and instead turned his focus to Andrew. Everyone in the town seemed to act weird or say weird shit like that. Andrew was weird in different ways. He was strange in a way that could never properly meld with the weirdness in the town. Until now, Aaron had written it off as a fluke, or as Andrew seeing his unease and trying to make him uncomfortable. It wasn’t like the thought was unprecedented. But this though? Andrew had been acting weird - or weirder anyway - since they got to town, but him adding Katelyn into his bubble of protection was probably the weirdest thing he had ever done.

  
  


The day Aaron woke up to Andrew singing a nursery rhyme to himself and laughing was the day that Aaron knew there was something terribly, _terribly_ wrong with his brother. Not that he hadn’t noticed all those times he caught Andrew giving him a creepy smile out of the corner of his eye, or laughing, or praising Aaron for finally managing to talk to a girl. All of those were weird, and - independently - all things that he could see his brother of three weeks ago doing just to irritate him. But doing them all at the same time? And right after moving to a new town with loads of other creepy shit happening? Not even Andrew would stoop so low just to weird him out. 

Even if you ignored everything else, the nursery rhymes were new. And they were terrifying.

Aaron watched his brother carry on singing the nursery rhyme while he ate breakfast. “Since when do you know nursery rhymes?” he finally asked him.

“Hm? Oh isn’t it funny? Nursery rhymes are always so _weird._ Hard to believe they sing these to children!” That terrible, _terrible_ grin was back, and only confirmed that Andrew was very much _Not Okay. “_ I learned this one frooooom, was it that boy in the Gates house? No. Oh, I know! It was Cass. She had a lovely singing voice you know.” 

Aaron had to make a conscious effort not to react to that. 

“Hm,” he grunted, and went back to his cereal. When he looked back up, Andrew was staring off into space.

Aaron knew three things about Andrew. Three universal truths, if you would. 

  1. He was and would always remain: an asshole. Even when he was being nice.
  2. He was afraid of heights.



And

  1. He didn’t talk about the Spears. 



Not ever, in the six years Aaron had known his brother, had Andrew _eve_ r said anything about the family Aaron had taken him from. He would occasionally mention things about his other foster families, or his group homes, or even the jail cell he had apparently only stayed in for one night when he had been locked up after taking the blame for Aaron’s not very well planned actions. Sometimes Aaron wondered if Andrew resented him for that. If Andrew blamed him for losing Cass Spear. As much as her son had sucked, from what Aaron had met of her, she had seemed nice. Almost like a real mom.

He had never gotten up the courage to ask his brother about them. About that night. About why he had taken the blame for Aaron, when he had no reason to do so other than a matching birth certificate. Andrew was the most predictable person Aaron knew. He didn’t just change his mind about things. If Andrew had decided he didn’t talk about the Spears, Andrew would never ever talk about the Spears. Not even in offhand comments. Which meant that whoever this was, it wasn’t Andrew.

Aaron finished his breakfast as quickly as possible and swung his backpack onto his shoulder. “I’m going to school, see you later.” Andrew didn’t respond, and Aaron escaped.

**Aaron**

There’s something wrong with Andrew. 

**Katelyn**

What do you mean?

**Aaron**

I mean he’s being possessed or something i don’t know, but he’s been acting weird since we moved here, and this morning he was like a completely different person. 

**Katelyn**

So what do we do?

**Aaron**

I don’t know

Katelyn shot him worried glances all the way through their shared biology lab, but Aaron ignored them, trying to rack his brain for any way to figure out what the hell was going on. It wasn’t until lunch where he saw the increasingly familiar glow of blue eyes watching him from the table in the corner, that he realized he knew exactly where he could get the information they needed.

“We’re sitting at the ghost table today,” he told Katelyn when she joined him in the cafeteria. 

“We’re _what_ now?”

“I think I know who the ghost is, and we need to talk to him,” he told her as he sat down on the people side. He wasn’t quite brave enough to venture over into the ghostly half yet. Not until he knew what they could do. She followed him, but eyed the table nervously. 

“Yo. Kid. What were you saying about my brother?”

“I have a name you know.” The kid materialized in front of Aaron in the space of a blink, and had he not been expecting this exact outcome, Aaron might have sworn that the kid had been just a normal kid who had been there the whole time and Aaron had just… never noticed.

“You never told us your name.” 

“It’s Neil.”

“Okay, Neil. What were you saying about my brother?”

“Did you not ask him?”

“Andrew doesn’t answer questions, even when he’s not being possessed or whatever.”

“He’s not _possessed._ If anything, he’s doing the possessing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, how else do you think a spirit gets a physic - mmm - or mostly physical body? He certainly wouldn’t have lasted this long around the seal without it. And he _definitely_ wouldn’t be able to have hit me with that stick. That fucking hurt by the way.”

“You deserved it. What do you mean, spirit?”

Neil studied his face, “Oh my god. Oh my god, you really didn’t know? Dude. Your brother is dead. He’s probably been dead for ages, with as well as he could handle that branch. It’s harder to touch new dead things than it is old. I should ask him if he’s figured out how to touch plastic yet. That one took some molecular math-ing to figure out. The ratio of sodium content fluctuates a lot, depending on the plastic.”

“I- _what?”_ Aaron felt a bit like he was short circuiting. His brother was not _dead._

“Hmm? Oh sorry, we can only touch dead things. So sometimes you have to focus, like a lot, on the individual parts in order to trick your way into touching things. Still can’t touch people though.” Neil misunderstood his question, but Aaron didn’t bother to correct him. He wasn’t sure he could speak if he tried.

“I think what Aaron means is, if Andrew is already dead, and that’s a _big_ if, what is possessing him now?” Katelyn cut into Neil’s rant. That was not what Aaron meant, but it was a valid question, so he let it slide and just winced again at the usage of “Andrew” and “Dead” in the same sentence. 

In a way, it wasn’t even really a shock. He had always known his brother was weird. He was aware that not just anyone would drop everything just to follow the twin they barely knew around the country. He wasn’t dumb enough to believe that he was the only reason Andrew hadn’t gone back into the system after that terrible night, but of all of the reasons he had dreamed up as to why Andrew was in hiding, death was not one of them. But it made sense. More sense than Andrew being on the run from the police, which had been Aaron’s running theory for the past few years.

“Oh. That. He probably doesn’t have a good tether, so he’s slowly being sucked in by the spirit array. I’m honestly surprised he’s lasted this long. Kevin only took two weeks to get sucked in.” 

“So how does that explain what’s happening to him?” Katelyn asked.

“It means he’s slowly losing anything that makes him, well, him. His personality, his memories, his wishes, and dreams. Most spirits don’t really have those, we don’t sleep. But some do!” Neil was far too chipper for someone who had just told a kid his brother had been dead for the last six years.

“Okay, okay, _fine._ How do we get him _back?”_ Aaron was not going to live in a world without his brother. Not again.

They couldn’t even begin planning until after school, because their lunch break was only so long, but Neil agreed to meet them at the park again. Part of Aaron was grateful Andrew was not being himself, because it meant that he didn’t have to try and hide their clandestine meetings with Neil. The other half of him was terrified, because this would be the first time since Andrew had started following him around that he hadn’t been there to meet Aaron after school.

“So basically, we just need to destroy the trapping array he’s using to collect the spirits. Problem is, I don’t know where the array is. It’s in the Lakehouse somewhere. But I’ve already searched every inch of the house, maybe it’s carved into the floorboards or something? A secret basement? I don’t know.”

“Hmmm. Okay, but did you check the woods?” Katelyn asked, looking at the satellite view of the map on her phone

“What.” Neil froze.

“Did you check the woods?” she looked up at him.

Neil just continued to look confused. “Why would I?” 

“Well it makes the most sense, doesn’t it, to carve the array into a living thing? You can’t destroy what you can’t touch.”

“Oh my god-,” 

Aaron couldn’t even look at the ghost anymore, just spoke from behind his hands. “Seriously Neil, you’ve been here for how many years and-,”

“You mean it’s probably been carved into a tree the whole time?” Neil wailed. 

It was already dark when they arrived at the Lakehouse. 

“I don’t know how much help I’m going to be,” Neil told them cheerfully. “I can’t actually touch the trees.” 

Katelyn gave him a withering stare. “You still have eyes, moron.” Neil just shrugged. 

Aaron sighed and pulled his flashlight out of his backpack. “Come on. This array isn’t going to destroy itself.” 

“Going places without me Aaron? I’m hurt. Truly.” Aaron turned around to see the thing that was not Andrew standing there with his demented grin. Neil vanished from the corner of his eye, but Aaron could only continue to stare at the thing that wasn’t his brother.

“What do you want?”

“You shouldn’t have come here, brother dearest.” The thing took a step forward, and Aaron had to smother the wounded sound he wanted to make at the horrible expression it had plastered on his brother’s face.

“Katelyn. Run.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her along but it quickly became apparent that they couldn’t keep it up if they wanted to make it out of this. Between the lack of light and the uneven forest floor, they didn’t have a chance.

“Go. Find the array. I’ll distract him,” Aaron gasped out between breaths. Then he let go of her hand and ran in the opposite direction. As expected, the thing ignored Katelyn completely and followed him. 

“Aw. Aaron. Is that how you treat your favorite brother? I’m hurt. Truly I am.” Aaron continued to run and ignored the voice in his head screaming at how _wrong_ the sickeningly sweet tone sounded coming from Andrew’s mouth.

Then he tripped. His flashlight went spiraling into the underbrush and Aaron scrambled to his knees, but was knocked back down with a firm boot to the ribs. 

“Hey, Aaron. What was that promise we made? That we would always stay together. Why are you running?”

It hadn’t completely sunk in until just then, how _wrong_ this all was. Andrew had _always_ protected Aaron, like he said he would. And even after all these years, he had never broken a promise. 

This? This wasn’t Andrew. This wasn’t his brother who followed him around, whether he liked it or not. Who teased him mercilessly for being a nerd, but always helped him study for tests. This wasn’t his brother who had taken Aaron’s place, and continued to protect him despite losing everything because of him. This wasn’t Andrew, who liked zombie movies, and mystery novels, and always had a witty comeback. 

Aaron had never taken his brother for granted, his only wish, since the day they found one another, was that he and Andrew could be like the brothers that he always saw in movies, who always had each other’s backs, even when they fought. 

“Who are you?” he whispered, resting back on his elbows and slowly backing away.

The thing wearing his brother’s face laughed. “I’m your brother, Aaron! Don’t you recognize me?” 

“You - you are not Andrew.”

“Oh, but of course I am! I’ve been with you for _so long._ I protected you from bullies, and quizzed you on science, and didn’t even laugh when you tried to ask Mary Ellen out in tenth grade, aren’t I nice? Isn’t that what you wanted? A _nice brother.”_

“No!” Aaron yelled back. “I didn’t want a _nice_ brother, Andrew was never _nice._ His first letter to me said “Fuck off” for fucks sake. Andrew isn’t nice. He’s mean, and grumpy, and a pain in the ass, and he can’t say something straightforward when he could say it in a riddle and throw in some Shakespeare. But that doesn’t _matter_ because Andrew is _my brother._

“He’s overprotective, and funny, in an asshole sort of way, and he can’t lie for shit, but he’s kind, and cares about people, even when they hurt him. You? You are _nothing_ like him. A cheap imitation at best.”

“Your brother is _dead,_ Aaron. He’s been dead for six years. The Andrew you knew was always a fake. A phony. An _imitation._ Did you really think you could keep your brother after you _murdered his brother?”_

“No! I had to! He was hurting Andrew! I couldn’t- I didn’t- I’m not-,” 

“Not a murderer? What else would you call it when you stick a knife in someone’s back when they’re not looking? Self defense? Do you really think that would hold up in a court?” 

Aaron despised the monster with everything he had. He hated feeling belittled and worthless, as if the most important decision he had ever made in his life was nothing but a petty act of violence, and not the only thing he had ever been able to do to help his brother. He hated that this _thing_ was still wearing Andrew’s face, and using that terrible smile that made him look like something out of a horror movie instead of the brother that Aaron had loved. He hated that he knew how much Andrew, who was always so particular about consent, would despise the way he was being used. 

Maybe his brother had died. Maybe Aaron had been living with a ghost this whole time, but that didn’t make him any less _real._ And Aaron was about to get _real_ pissed on his behalf. 

“Fuck off! Leave us alone! We didn’t ask for you to come in and possess my brother!” 

The monster laughed his horrible not-Andrew laugh, and leaned forward. “Oh, but little lost boy, _he did._ ”

Aaron blinked at the thing in horror. “No. You’re lying.”

“Not at all! See, we have what you might call a mutually beneficial relationship. He gives me the spirit necessary to remain on this plane, and I give him a - mostly - physical form. I have _always_ been here, Aaron. Haven’t you ever wondered why your brother refused to be seen, or go to the authorities? Did you never think to ask _why_ your _dear brother_ would never touch you or stay the night? Did you ever think about how you’ve never seen him eat, or sleep, or use the bathroom? Or ask yourself how Andrew seemed to _always be there_ when you needed him?”

The monster stood back up and scoffed at him. “Pathetic. I can’t believe he wasted all these years hanging around just to protect you. It’s a waste of effort if you ask me, especially since you’re just going to end up the same as him in the end anyway.” 

The thing smiled his terrible smile again and Aaron scrambled further back as the monster’s fingers stretched and sharpened, then reached leisurely towards him. Then they stopped abruptly, and Andrew’s face shifted into something closer to normal. “What are you? An Idiot? Run!”

Aaron took off in the direction of the Lakehouse, and didn’t dare look back.

Aaron found Katelyn a couple hundred yards from the house. She was hacking away at a tree with an ax. That was a good thing, right? That meant she had found the array. Aaron skidded to a halt beside her. 

“What do you need?” he asked as she swung the ax again. 

“Get out of the way, and keep Andrew away from me. The blasted thing has some sort of barrier around it, so it takes like five swings to get one dent in it. Why can’t these things ever follow normal physics!” She continued beating away at the tree and swearing. 

Aaron took her flashlight from where she had dropped it on the ground in favor of swinging the ax, and swung it around to watch the forest around them. This didn’t make any sense. None of it did. Where had Andrew gone? Why was he not attacking?

“Boo,” Andrew’s voice came from behind him, and Aaron spun around to face him. In doing so, he changed the trajectory of the claw that had been aiming for his middle, making it sink deep into his arm instead. He let out a gasp of pain that was soon overshadowed by Katelyn’s victorious cry as she finally sunk the ax into the middle of the array.

There was a loud whistling, and the surrounding trees rumbled and shook, sending flurries of dried leaves spinning across the forest floor. Aaron momentarily wondered if Neil had lied about what exactly it was that the array did, before he found himself trying to catch Andrew, who had what looked like silver ooze sinking into his skin. Even if Aaron’s arm hadn’t been injured, he would have failed, as apparently silver ooze overrode the monster physics thing that allowed him to get stabbed in the first place, and Andrew crumpled to the ground body going straight through Aaron’s left leg. It was the first time Aaron had ever touched his brother, and he immediately decided he hated it.

This was a really fucking weird week.

“Andrew!” he yelped, backing out so he was at least no longer standing through his brother.

“Oh chillax. He’ll be fine. His spirit is just busy overriding the monster again, or whatever. The real question is what happened to everyone else.” Neil appeared beside him, and Aaron had to force himself not to jump. 

“Where have _you_ been?” he demanded of the spirit. 

Neil shrugged. “You had it handled.” 

“If I could, I would strangle you right now,” Katelyn told him darkly, glaring up at him through the curls that had escaped her braid. She was still hunched over, catching her breath from the effort of swinging the ax at the tree for so long.

Neil took a deliberate step away from her. Before she could do more than scowl at him though, Andrew sat up.

“Ugh. I feel so gross. You owe me like, three Harry Potter marathons for this Aaron. Look at this! I’m covered in your blood!” Andrew made a disgusted face as he tried to wipe his hand off on the leaves beside him.

“Because you stabbed me!” Aaron retorted, too relieved to be truly angry at his infuriating brother. It was just like Andrew to use this situation to try and guilt him into something.

“I saved your life, you should be grateful,” Andrew responded. He still hadn’t looked up from the leaves he was slowly coating in Aaron’s blood.

“Yeah, and then you _stabbed me.”_

“I fail to see the problem. You’re still alive, therefore I saved your life.”

“I cannot _believe-,”_

“Are they always like this?” Neil asked Katelyn behind him. 

“From what I can tell, yeah.”

_Two Months Later_

Aaron wasn’t really sure that using the lakehouse as a sort of clubhouse was really the best idea, but then again of the ten of them that used it, only he and Katelyn were alive. Either way, Neil claimed that his shitty dad was the one who owned the property in the first place, and Aaron was a big fan of pissing off shitty parents.

“Why do we have to bring gifts if none of you have anywhere to put them?” Aaron complained to Andrew as he shuffled the stack in his hands. 

“That’s racist and very rude,” Andrew declared, shoving his hands further into his pockets. The snow crunched under both of their feet, which meant Andrew was feeling particularly present today. It had gotten a lot easier for Aaron to read his brother, now that he knew Andrew was dead. He wasn’t sure if it was just that there wasn’t that barrier between them anymore, or if Andrew was actually making an effort to be more open with Aaron.

“Your face is very rude,” he retorted. Andrew may have been more readable lately, but he was still a dick.

“Your mom is very rude.”

“Now look who’s being very rude. Insensitive, I tell you,” Aaron sniffed haughtily, then let out a shriek when Andrew dumped a handful of snow down the back of his shirt.

“Andrew!” he yelled at his twin. “You can’t do shit like that when I can’t do it back!” 

“Sucks to suck, doesn’t it little bro?”

“We’re twins!”

“You know, for someone who is supposedly worried about getting caught, you sure do yell a lot.” Neil materialized from the woods. 

“Shut it.” Aaron glared at him, and ignored the way Andrew seemed to subconsciously drift closer to the other ghost. He wasn’t sure if Andrew was trying to be subtle or not, but either way, he was failing.

“You guys should really stop picking on Aaron. He doesn’t have the emotional stability to handle it,” Katelyn commented, trudging through the woods behind them with a stack of presents of her own. 

“Hey! Whose side are you on, anyway?” Aaron scowled at her while Neil laughed. Even Andrew looked vaguely smug. He tugged at a lock of Aaron’s hair, as he had taken to doing ever since he discovered he could. Aaron… didn’t hate it, if the warm feeling that built in his chest was any indication.

“Come on. I have a running bet with Renee on how long it will take me to get Kevin to snap,” Andrew said.

“What, like it’s hard?” Aaron commented, sending Neil into another round of laughter. Aaron smiled into his scarf and watched Andrew make a matching set of footprints in the snow beside him. The way it was supposed to be.

  
  
  
  



End file.
